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Eor
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 02:12 am: | 
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Hi Brad.
I'm sorry for your loss. I went though a similar experience with my father in 1994. I remember getting up in the bed with him in ICU before they transferred him to the room with the drawn shades. He patted me on the head and told me he had done all he could for me. I told him he had done just fine.
I stayed by his side for the better part of three days but finally had to go home and get some rest. I hadn't been asleep long when I sat up in bed and asked my wife, "Has this all been a bad dream?" Before she could answer me, the phone rang.
I don't think a day goes by that I don't think of him, even after all this time. I wish he could be here to see how I got some rather heavy things he left me with sorted out, and how I got my life a little better on track...although he probably wouldn't care for the motorcycle thing much.
It's funny how things hit you. Not long ago I moved his hard hat from a corner table where I had kept it for several years. It still smelled like him...after all that time. I was a little kid again waiting for Dad to come home from work
and give me a hug. I cried for hours.
You're going to be just fine. Trust me. Would Brad Johnson lie to you? 
BTW...Robert Johnson was my Great Great Grandfather's name.
Weird...uh?
Take care.
Brad |
Court
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 05:36 am: |
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Brad:
I know how long this has gone on and I am very sorry to hear of your lose.
My deepest condolences to you and your family. Thoughts and prayers are with you as you heal.
Court |
Mikej
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 08:16 am: |
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Our hearts are with you,
yesterday, today, and tomorrow. |
Tripper
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 09:02 am: |
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Of course Pammy beat me to it. Here is another way to put it:
 |
Peter
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 02:27 pm: |
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Brad,
I just read that sitting in Amsterdam.
My parents are over from Australia at the moment and I'm 100 miles away working.
I'm shutting down the computer, going home, and taking tomorrow morning off to spend a few hours with them.
Thank you for the kick.
God bless. |
Firemanjim
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 05:02 pm: |
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Brad,just read your words and it brought tears to my eyes and made me smile,too.My brother and I had to decide when it was time to take my dad off life support when he was sick several years ago.Seriously hard.Glad you got to be with him. |
Chauly
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 05:22 pm: |
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Brad,
My condolences, indeed. I know exactly of what you speak; I think of my Dad often, wondering what he would think of this, wondering how he'd like that, knowing that he would absolutely LOVE doing the next thing. He died in 1996, at age 71, way too soon.
Take Care....
Charlie Smallman |
Blake
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 06:14 pm: |
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From your deep heartfelt feelings so well communicated here, we can all see clearly that your dad was obviously one of the great ones. Sounds to me like you were one of the great sons too. Thank you for sharing Brad. You have inspired me to appreciate my own Dad even more so than I typically do. |
M2me
| | Posted on Tuesday, September 20, 2005 - 10:35 pm: |
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Brad,
I found your Dad's obituary on the StarTribune's site. I am posting it here. I hope you don't mind.
Robert S. "Bubs" Johnson
Johnson Robert S. "Bubs", Oct. 8, 1930 - Sept. 17, 2005. Free spirit gone home. Preceded in death by parents, Clifford and Olpha Johnson; and sister, Marilyn Nelson. Survived and loved by children, Melanie (Christopher) Thiel, Bradley (Jan) Johnson, Kristin (Scott) Paulson, Denise (Tim) Peick and Elisa (William) Marsh; sister, Janette Paulson; grandchildren, Alec, Carl, Corinne, Mikayla, Stacey, Cole, Colin, Annika and Madeleine. Lonnie shares in our sorrow. Graveside service Wednesday, Sept. 21, 11:00 AM, Fort Snelling National Cemetery, meet at Assembly Area #4. Memorials preferred to the Muscular Dystophy Association. Cremation Society of MN Mpls. 612-825-2435
Sign the guestbook |
S3ters
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 12:11 am: |
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Brad, we're very sorry to hear about your father's passing. Take care, Dennis & Renee |
Choptop
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 09:18 am: |
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Be glad for the time you had with him. Be glad you were able to be there with him when he passed.
No one gets out of this life alive. The best you can hope to do is to enjoy the time you have with each other.
I miss ChopPop every day. |
Oldog
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 06:24 pm: |
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brad:
sorry to hear of your loss,
its good that you got to see him off,
may GOD bless you and yours |
Iamike
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 - 09:47 pm: |
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Brad-
Thanks for calling me Saturday about your dad. It really changed my weekend with my dad up at the cabin. He is getting old and is having trouble with things that sometimes can test my patience. Whenever I started to say something I would remind myself that this may be the last time I see him.
When I lost my younger sister four years ago we knew it was coming and she left on her terms. As hard as it is to lose someone dear it is much easier knowing that it is under good terms and not in anger or conflict.
My thoughts and prayers are with you. |
Bluzm2
| | Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 03:45 pm: |
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Thank you everyone for your kind words and thoughts.
I was just typing up a LONG post about the events of the last 5 days.
But I was bitten by a computer glitch (Actually it was my fault..). I lost over an hours worth of writing!
I have some important things to say to all of my friends here but will have to try again a bit later as I have another family event to attend this afternoon.
Brad |
Jerry_haughton
| | Posted on Thursday, September 22, 2005 - 06:46 pm: |
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Brad, i'm glad we got to meet you earlier this year, and we're so sorry for your loss.
i, too, was at my Dad's side when he took his last breath, along with immediate family. it's been almost 20 years ago, but sometimes i just cry thinking about him. like now.
the hole in your chest will always be there, but in time it will be less noticeable to you. but never forgotten.
as it should be.
be glad, as i know you are, that you were there at his end, at his new beginning - not everyone is as fortunate. your Dad left in peace, and based on the enormous quality of your words in your initial post, i know you're gonna be all right.
good night, Mr. Johnson.
Ferris & Denise |
Captainkirk
| | Posted on Friday, September 23, 2005 - 12:30 am: |
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Brad, Sorry for your loss. I missed this thread somehow. I still have moments when I get blindsided and caught unawares but I've learned to deal with the loss, as you will. I found that sharing stories with those who knew my dad, while painful, eased my mind in the long run. Feel free to share those stories with us; we're all family. God Bless. |
Bluzm2
| | Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2005 - 01:23 am: |
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To all my friends here at Bad Weather Bikers:
I started this note the day after my Dads memorial service.
I was unable to finish it until tonight. It was much harder than I figured.
It’s going to take a bit more than I thought to come to grips with Dad’s death.
Please excuse references to specific days now two weeks past….
Brad
As you can imagine, this has been a VERY long week.
I cannot begin to tell all of you how much your kind words have meant to my family and me.
I must give a special nod of the head to Pammy (Pam Brown), Tripp (Dave Tripp) and Bcordb3 (Bill Cordeiro). Pam and Dave, the quote you posted was exactly what I was looking for. I used it my Dad’s eulogy, it was a perfect description of my Dad.
Bill, your words took me totally off guard. The truth of your statement was profound. It too was used in the eulogy.
To everyone else, all I can say is Thank You.
They say that everything happens for a reason, sometimes though it’s very tough to find the reason. This past week my family and I found many.
When my Dad had the stroke in May, we wondered why he didn’t die right there on the steps where he fell (undiscovered for at least 2 days).
Although he recovered somewhat, he was never able to leave the nursing home.
On Saturday, we went to the nursing home to gather his things. When we entered his room, his roommate was there getting ready to leave with his wife for the day.
This man is in his late 40’s; he had a stroke about 3 ½ years ago. He got hit pretty hard in the thought processing area of his brain.
His wife asked how our Dad was doing, it was difficult to tell her he had died earlier that same morning. Obviously she wasn’t expecting that. She began to cry. We then heard a very anguished cry. It was from her husband. He was crying and sobbing openly.
The reaction from his wife was quite unexpected. Her tears changed from sorrow to joy.
She told us that this was the first time he had showed any emotion of any sort since his stroke. She felt a major step had just been taken in his rehab and recovery. So, maybe my Dad stayed alive on the steps to help this man in some way.
The rest of the day was spent planning the memorial service and other details.
Sunday was the visit with the funeral director. Dad made it easy on us as he had made it VERY clear many times that he hated funerals. He wanted to be cremated and his remains scattered somewhere. He never did specify where though. Because of rules at the national cemetery, we had to have the ashes scattered before any ceremony could be held.
Because of this, we only had one day to decide what to do. As Tuesday was the only day available, we decided to scatter half of his ashes and inter the rest at Fort Snelling on Wednesday. There were so many scheduling conflicts with the cemetery honor guard, other family members flights, etc. it was a wonder it all came together.
Monday was a day of family arrivals, lots of tears, lots of eating and lots of wine.
On Tuesday, we headed down to a very secluded beach on the Mississippi river, south of Red Wing MN. We felt the Mississippi River was very appropriate as Dad was a water person. He was very spiritual but a devout agnostic. He leaned more towards Native American spiritualism with the earth, sky and water and a bit of eastern philosophy thrown in for flavor. He was particularly fond of Key West as he lived there twice. We felt that spreading his ashes in the “Great River” would bring the possibility of some of his ashes winding on a Key West shore.
There were 18 of us traveling in 6 vans. It was fun to talk and laugh on the way down. That is until the next unexpected event. I was riding in the middle van watching the cornfields go by when I looked up the next hill. The road roller coasters through the countryside in the area and coming over the top of the next hill was a motorcycle doing a wheelie. He was going over the posted limit by more than a little.
As he came over the crest, he touched down without any wobbles. Unfortunately, he started drifting toward the gravel shoulder. It looked like he was going to pull it out but as the old saying goes “Alas, there could be but one outcome.” He drifted onto the shoulder and started swerving. I could see the front wheel digging in and the rear wheel spinning. As he went by us, he was already going over the handlebars as the bike was now headshaking very badly. As I looked out the back of the van I saw him face plant on the edge of the shoulder where the very steep weed covered ditch began.
All three vans stopped, I was the second person to get to the crash site. We were pretty sure what we would find. We then heard this thrashing and swearing coming up the ditch! Next thing we saw was a young kid in his early 20’s climbing out of the weeds cursing a blue streak. To make a long story short, this punk (he was a total idiot, trust me) got the gift of a second chance. I’m quite sure he has no clue how lucky he was.
He insisted that we not call 911 as he didn’t have insurance. It was too late for that as I think every car that passed called for help. As they packed him in the ambulance, he had a broken nose, a very large bump on his head, lots of scrapes and a major laceration just below his right knee. One very lucky fellow indeed.
Believe it or not, we should have expected something like this. The whole event was very Dad like. Stuff like this happened all the time as I was growing up. Life was always and adventure with my old man.
We all got back into our vehicles and continued our journey to the river.
After a bit of hunting (the beach is hard to find) we found the correct road to the parking area of the riverside beach. Everyone spent a few minutes walking up and down the beach, looking at the river, skipping stones, or what ever they needed to do.
Shortly, we found a spot that felt right, gathered into a circle holding hands and placed my Dad’s box of ashes in the middle. We all took turns saying our final words out loud or silently in our hearts.
My oldest sister and I went to get the ashes so we could start Dad on his journey.
In another funny quirk, not only were the ashes double boxed they were double bagged!
We all got a smile out of that. I’m not sure where they get those boxes, but it must be a puzzle factory….
I held the bag as each of his 5 children waded into the river and scattered a portion of his remains.
Everyone participated, grandkids, son in laws, even my Mom (they were divorced when I was 15).
When everyone had taken his or her turn, there was still a small amount left.
I waded farther out into the river, said my final good bye and sent the last bit on its way.
I didn’t know it at the time but as I was standing out in the river, a sea gull appeared over my head and began circling. No one saw it approach but it stayed there until I turned to come back to shore.
This was a huge sign for us as one of my Dads favorite books was Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Wednesday was the memorial service at Fort Snelling. It was very moving with the flag ceremony, the 21 gun salute and taps. I had planned on playing taps myself (I’m a trumpet player) but at the last minute decided against it as I didn’t need the pressure.
I figured it was going to be tough enough to get through the eulogy.
As luck would have it, it was the right decision. When we pulled up to the memorial ceremony area, I didn’t notice the 2nd trumpeter. After the 21 gun salute, echo taps was played. The 2nd trumpeter was about 50 yards away and echoed the 1st trumpeter.
I could not have done that….. It was perfect.
After taps was played, an official presented the flag to my oldest sister. After accepting it, she turned and gave it to me saying “This should belong to you, please take it.”
I was again deeply honored.
After I read my best attempt at a eulogy, we stayed for a few minutes (they run a very tight time schedule at national cemeteries) and departed for my sisters for another gathering for family and friends.
We all did our best to honor one of my Dads long time requests.
He didn’t want “a bunch of long faces and tears when I die” but rather a party to laugh and remember.
I think we did a pretty good job…
Very sincerely,
Brad, Jan and the rest of my entire family |
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